The Gate is Now

Japanese Arrow Bamboo is just too strong a plant for most people, but it's beautiful . . . .

"The underlying fabric of the world sustains us" . . . this is a statement from "The Buddha," a film that describes the origin of Buddhism, a world view with ideas that are deeply ecological, interdependent, linked. . . then take a turn toward the human condition.

"The gate is now" refers to the concept that paying attention opens the inner door ~ outer and inner life touch at this gate of attention. To the extent that you pay attention to this moment, you have access to the universe within. Though this back-and-forth process, reality reveals itself without reasoning.

The inner life, the spirituality, the 'religion' of the buddhist is only 'taught' through the living, human being who 'walks, talks and laughs.'

All of the benefits of this approach to life are available to everyone, every moment and forever without allegiance to a doctrine, a theory, a dogma.

"Strive on untiringly,' Buddha said. His ideas, more a philosophy than a religion, arose in the fifth century BCE. For most of my life I have been taught to rely on, depend on and turn to 'reasoning' to back up my observations. Reasoning's foundation, logic or coherence, helps observation become science, a textbook agreement among us to approach things with prior evidence-based thinking and recording.

Science can be a buddhist practice when approached as continuous striving and review.

Spirituality is mental . . . an inner peaceful place, a sanctuary for our feelings, thoughts and observations, where even suffering and torment find a place.

The gate is now . . .the world is revealing continually . . .inner peace is at hand.

Posted by Barbara